A Hunter's Folly
by TheSereneWolf
Summary: A bounty hunter on a job finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time... R&R please! My very existance hinges on wether of not I receive reviews!


This is the beginning of a novel that I'm trying to write, and it's looking pretty decent, though I'm not sure (at all) that anybody would consider it _decent_ enough to actually publish...when it's finished of course...but hey. I'm getting better all the time......uh...anyway, here's the first chapter of A Hunter's Folly...by....well.........me.

**A Hunter's Folly: Chapter One**

His hands shook with obvious anxiety, thwarting any attempt to keep the gun's sights centered on the target. He vainly tried to steady them, aware that he'd an entirely too tight grip on the weapon's trigger, knuckles a ghostly white. Easing up a bit and taking several long, deep breaths, he again took aim. Still, nerves prevailed over discipline, drawing a frustrated sigh from him. He lowered the blaster until it rested at his right hip, watching silently as a very fortunate Rodian diplomat entered the Red Moon hotel, completely unaware of how close he had come to being just another smoking corpse added to the logs of a Coruscant morgue.

He wasn't a hit man. He couldn't kill an innocent person for credits, or for any other reason. He was a bounty hunter, not an assassin. What had possessed him to take such a despicable job?

No money. Broke. Fund less. Financially depleted. Cash-impaired. Call it what you will, but it didn't matter how you put it, every way, he was screwed. Why? One too many hunters, not nearly enough prey. Contracts went extremely fast, simply because there were so many bounty hunters out there who were as penniless as he was. Even with all those who died pursuing the more...hostile bounties, more and more young, arrogant fools rushed in to replace them.

Despite being one of the Outer Rim's premiere hunters, Tyrael still found it increasingly difficult to locate a well paying job that didn't involve cold-blooded murder. Like was said before, he was no hit man. There was no honor in assassination of harmless innocents, and Tyrael was nothing if not a man of honor. He, unlike most in this line of work, did not just take just any bounty, they had to be optional captures and more importantly, the being who was marked must have committed a crime of substantial gravity, such as manslaughter. The reasoning behind this stemmed from his strong system of morals, which demanded of him that he track only those felons who deserved to be hunted down, like the animals they were.

No government of privately issued contracts for killers, or rapists (who were another group of people on his "acceptable to eliminate" list), had come out in just over a month, leaving Tyrael effectively out of work, forcing him to go so far as take a Hutt given hit. He was disgusted with himself because of it, even more so now as his soft, almost inaudible footsteps echoed down the barely lit stairways of the Star's Glow apartment complex. This place was conveniently located little over fifty yards from the Red Moon's lobby entrance. Its rooftop slanted downwards at a thirty degree angle in that direction, allowing a relatively clear view of the elaborate transparasteel doorway from one of the top floor windows. An ideal place for a hired gun to lie in wait, dispatch his quarry, and then make his or her expedient escape. He didn't need to flee now, having left the diplomat breathing, so he just walked down the stairs at a brisk, yet relaxed pace. Briefly, his mind wandered to why the Hutt wanted the Rodian fried. What could he have done that would've---

An explosion rocked the building, catching Tyrael off balance, shockwaves tossing him to the hard floor like a rag doll and shattering several nearby windows. In an instant, he was up and peering out one of the former glass view ports, eyes focusing on the billowing black smoke and orange tendrils of flame that now engulfed the Red Moon's main entry way. Without even giving a thought to it, his armor clad legs carried him down the remaining stairs and out the simple, green, plastic padded door. He passed by gaping bystanders who stood frozen, unable to do more than draw breath, their eyes locked on the chaotic scene unfolding before them. Quickly, Tyrael covered the distance between the two buildings arriving at and halting just before the bright mass of eviscerating fire.

Normally, the auto-fire fighting system, a standard in nearly all buildings nowadays, would have activated by now to spray oxygen-less foam and water onto the blaze, but apparently, whoever had set the bomb must have disabled it. Made sense actually, if the initial eruption wasn't fatal, then the ensuing firestorm, coupled with suffocating smoke, would make swift work of survivors. It was thorough, obviously the work of someone who knew what they were doing; a pro, a vet of the murder for money business. An assassin was out there, probably watching everything play out from a planned viewing location, and doubtlessly, whoever it was had their attention focused on the armored figure that was Tyrael.

Time had a tendency to run out at the most inopportune moment...like right now. There came screams from within the lobby, indicating to Tyrael that the instant of action was at hand, and there was a decision to make. He told himself that he had a choice in the matter, but he knew otherwise; he'd help them. With a slight sigh, he hurriedly moved forward into the fire, knowing full well that his grey, light, full body armor would protect him from the heat for up to an hour before he'd start roasting.

Immediately after stepping through the first layer of flames, he could already see several severely burned bodies lying about, a few of them evidently killed by flak from the explosion and not by the rapidly expanding blaze. He could tell because, well, fire didn't usually pin a Trandoshan to a wall with half-a-dozen huge glass shards. As he walked through the obliterated, massive room, which would have been rather stunning to look upon before it blew up. Tyrael noted the sequined cloths and radiant, silky red streamers that were literally everywhere in the blackened area, all of them either tattered or covered in soot. Along with the assorted decorations, there were huge, lavish banners above the front doors and what used to be the front desk. One depicted a ruby tinted crescent moon on a soft, black background while the other showed a grey full moon floating amid a sea of blood red.

Tyrael moved with utmost haste toward sounds of dismay, including frightened sobs and the occasional cry for help. He swiftly searched each and every room in the lobby and first floor for survivors, not fretting for those in the floors above, for he knew that by now, rescue workers were on their way. This was a popular establishment after all, so response to its lower floor's decimation would be speedy, if not immediate. One room held more bodies, none showing physical damage aside from pools of blood draining out their ears. That was an effect associated with a concussion grenade. Strange...perhaps these people had stumbled upon the assassin as he or she worked; a particularly unfortunate occurrence for them.

Sobs. Terrible, soul wrenching sobs. They echoed down the scarlet carpeted hallways, distorted and muffled a bit as if coming from within something, like a container, or semblance of one. Tyrael was not affected by the strangulated weeping that felt, for all the galaxy, like it transcended time and space, burrowing constantly deeper into the listener's emotional core, ripping through it like a tsunami of horrendous pain. He'd known full well that he would encounter something like this; it was only natural for this situation. He had seen all this before, on dozens of different worlds, different sectors of space, all throughout his six year career as a hunter. Senseless devastation and the effects on those involved. Stepping through that big, flaming entrance way, Tyrael had mentally prepared himself for whatever horrors awaited him, erecting wall after wall in his mind. He walked toward where the sound emanated from, the expansive kitchen in the hotel's rear section.

Pots, pans, piles of ornate dishes, forks, knives, spoons, elegantly crafted bowls, and literally hundreds of other forms of table ware, catering to nearly all walks of life, rested in a state of general discord on the floor, the counters, the sinks, and everywhere else imaginable. Dishes were shattered, bowls were all but eradicated, utensils were scattered as much as a politician's sense of morality, and lastly, a pair of cooks dressed in formerly white uniforms, now stained by blood and dirt, were laid out in two very different positions.

One was a Twi'lek male, he stared at Tyrael with lifeless eyes from the cold, black tiled floor, both lekku, or "head tails", hiding the mortal wound on his skull. The other chef was a light skinned Ithorian, an odd looking sentient with a strange head that resembled a hammerhead's, but elongated and which terminated into a hump at the top of its spine, housing its large brain. The later was a far cry from the former, the Twi'lek appearing almost human while the Ithorian had a particularly alien look to it; death apparently cared not for the body's physical characteristics, for both cooks were equally dead.

While his fellow worker had found final rest on a chilled floor covered by debris, the Ithorian was precariously positioned atop a stove...that was on...resulting in a very acrid and thoroughly sickening stench. The odor had such a powerful, debilitating edge to it, that even the two miniature filtering fans within the mouth area of Tyrael's helmet, a light scout affair with a black view plate that ran in a sort of T-shape from just above his brow to right about the bottom of his chin, failed to keep it from reaching his nostrils. The fans were silent running, efficient little devices that cleansed any and all air of volatile chemicals and other devious microscopic assailants, both of which were positioned on either side of the visor's lower section, at his mouth level. He successfully held in a bout of coughing and gagging.

Tyrael heard the crying get louder as he walked further into the kitchen, reaching its full volume when he came to a mid-size metal cabinet. He bent down, and with a jet black glove, pulled on its thin red handle. It clicked but resisted. Locked. When the handle had rattled, the weeping ceased abruptly. Sighing, he spoke in as calm and sincere a voice he could muster, "Please unlock the door, the fire is growing...fast. We need to get the hell out of here."

A voice rose from the metal cocoon after a good few seconds, "G-Go away! For all I know, y-you did t-this!" It was an irrationally frightened female's voice.

"All right, think about it Ma'm, if I did all this, why would I still be here when the authorities could come at any minute? I'd be long gone by now wouldn't I?" Tyrael felt time running out, the flames were twenty feet from the kitchen door, steadily inching closer every moment or two.

"I suppose...but---" She was cut off by the booming sound of Tyrael's disruptor pistol as it blew out the flimsy locking mechanism. Opening the partially melted door, he reached into the compact space and grabbed her arm, yanking her out a second later.

A beautiful Twi'lek girl emerged from the cabinet's dark recesses. Her skin was of a blue so deep that it bordered on purple, the very color of Coruscant's pretty night sky. Her eyes, like twin super-novas, seemed to burst with life just behind amethyst irises, despite the tears that had recently fallen from them. To say she was gorgeous would be an insult to her and the very notion of physical beauty. Her lekku, two tentacle-like appendages that sprouted from the back of her head, replacing hair, were very caringly positioned, the right one hanging down onto her chest while the left was wrapped loosely about her neck. Each of them was just under a couple feet long, broad at where they connected to her cranium, gradually becoming thinner until ending in a blunted point (an oxymoron, I know).

Wearing a white garment similar to those found on the pair of deceased cooks, the top of which seemed loose, flowing, lending no insight whatsoever as to her body shape (Probably a purposeful choice, considering that she was a chef and attention of co-workers need to be focused on food preparation, not her...assets.), this lovely woman stared directly into the T-shaped visor of Tyrael's Echani made helmet. Although her shirt did little for the imagination, the pants she wore were the exact opposite, tight and clinging to her figure, which was sensible, considering that her hips were just below counter level, placing her at about 5'5", 5'6". She'd a frightened expression on her alluringly pretty face, and surprisingly, beneath her obvious fear, there was a slightly less obvious look of supreme indignation, probably from having been forcibly extracted from the safety of the cabinet.

He expected her to be a bit scared, given the circumstances, but never would he have guessed that she'd be angry with him. Honestly, Tyrael just didn't see a reason for even the faintest bit of animosity directed at anyone except the bomber, whoever that bastard was. Defying logic, she still looked upon him with almost hostile, purple hued eyes, her subtly aggressive posture acted as a sort of warning for Tyrael, who was being careful to avoid any action that could be construed as belligerent, lest he accidentally provoke her into violence.

One gloved hand descending to his left hip and depositing the smoking disruptor pistol into its military style, high-cut black holster, Tyrael adopted a relaxed stance, other hand in the air, opened so she could see that it contained nothing. In mere moments, both hands were in that position, showing his intentions were not the least bit insidious. He hoped so anyway, as the fire was drawing still nearer, making time a very important factor in both his and the woman's survival.


End file.
